Viewers get many channels, but not enough

Got a voice mail the other day from a Time Warner Cable customer that made me laugh:

“We have Time Warner and we want to watch San Diego State and we don’t know what The Mtn. is.”

That’s OK, neither does almost anyone else.

Sure, it’s available on Cox Cable and DirecTV, but after all these years, Time Warner and The Mtn. have yet to work something out to help people watch San Diego State. It’s especially painful this basketball season, when nine more games featuring the nationally ranked Aztecs — including Saturday night against Wichita State — will be on The Mtn.

But it’s not just The Mtn. that people can’t watch. Saturday night’s USC-UCLA football game will be on FSN Prime Ticket, which remains available here only on satellite and the old Adelphia system in North County. The game isn’t what it is in some years (i.e., relevant), but it’s still very meaningful to the tens of thousands of alums who live here.

No surprise, though, that while people in such Pac-10 hot spots as Cleveland (Time Warner) and New Orleans (Cox) can see the game, most of San Diego cannot. Fox Sports Net (which owns Prime Ticket) and Cox and Time Warner long ago sent Pac-10 fans in San Diego a message: We don’t care about you.

Again, this is nothing new. Time Warner still doesn’t carry NFL Network or NHL Network … Cox still doesn’t have Fox Soccer Channel in HD (although that could happen next year) or Big Ten Network … The satellites and Cox still haven’t worked out a deal for Channel 4 San Diego. I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting.

We have more games to watch in more ways than ever before, but it’s hard not to think about what we don’t have, particularly when nights like Saturday come along. Even if it costs a little more, just give us the option.

Fouts in relief

With Phil Simms taking the weekend off to recover from back surgery, Dan Fouts will fill in alongside Jim Nantz on Sunday’s CBS telecast of Chargers-Raiders.

Fouts started 24 Chargers-Raiders games from 1973 (his first NFL start) through 1987, facing the hated rivals more often than any other team. The Chargers lost his first seven starts (No. 7 was the Holy Roller) and finished 7-17. Fouts had more attempts (788) and touchdowns (36) against the Raiders than any other team, and more yards (5,607) than any team except Denver (5,612).

His career announcing record was unavailable, but the Chargers are 7-2 the last two seasons with Fouts in the booth, including the first two games in the club’s current four-game win streak.

Radio daze

The latest Arbitron ratings came out Thursday, covering the four weeks ending Nov. 10, and XX Sports Radio saw its ratings drop from the previous cycle (which included Padres games) but remain strong. And, while XX Sports predictably has its lowest ratings (not counting after 9 p.m.) during the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. time slot, not many listeners followed Jim Rome to XTRA Sports 1360.